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On a Desert Gallop, Planting Assorted Red Flags

It may not be "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but "Sahara," the screen adaptation of Clive Cussler's sprawling African adventure yarn, is a movie that keeps half a brain in its head while adopting the amused, cocky smirk of the Indiana Jones romps. A fusion of old and new, it both is and isn't a delirious escape into adventure-serial heaven. Amid its madcap derring-do, the movie inserts clear, simple alarms about environmental protection, African despotism, global interdependence and bureaucratic cowardice.

The movie's dressing up of an old-fashioned adventure fantasy in contemporary threads is an experiment in juxtaposition that gains in assurance as the film bounds along. Given the grim news these days of African nations ground to dust under the boots of ruthless, feuding warlords, the film's caricatured vision of greed, oppression and misery in parts of Africa doesn't feel entirely like a caricature. Ultimate real-life horror, after all, is a grotesque cartoon.

The two-hour-plus film has the timing and stamina of a marathon runner. As "Sahara" careers between swashbuckling silliness and semi-serious comment, it builds up reserves of energy and good will that pay off when it bursts into its final sprint, a rootin'-tootin' 21-gun finale as satisfying as it is preposterous.

"Sahara" is the sure-handed directorial debut of Breck Eisner (son of Michael), who maintains strict control of an oversize story (the novel runs to 700 pages) whose multiple plots could easily have splintered into an incomprehensible tangle. The screenplay, credited to four writers, allows you to follow the multinational crew of treasure hunters, warlords, tribal chiefs and officials from various global agencies as they gallivant across Western Africa (the movie was filmed mostly in Morocco) without losing your way.

What starts out as a treasure hunt turns into a desperate attempt to forestall an environmental catastrophe one character calls "the Chernobyl of the Atlantic." Keeping things clear in a movie this capacious isn't easy, as evidenced by the increasing numbers of Hollywood tent poles clad in epic drag that don't make even a token bid for coherence (think only of the "Mummy" films) and are content to splat themselves onto the screen like reeking pools of regurgitated junk food.

"Sahara" may be the ultimate test of Matthew McConaughey's still-unrealized potential to enter Hollywood's magic circle. If this movie can't propel the 35-year-old Texan actor into Harrison Ford's $20 million trekking boots, nothing can, and the longstanding heir apparent will never be king. His character, Dirk Pitt, an unflappably game treasure hunter obsessed with finding a Confederate ironclad ship that disappeared at the end of the Civil War and may have landed in Africa, epitomizes Rhett Butler Lite. Twinkling and sinewy, his rakish insolence accented by a mustache, Mr. McConaughey's Dirk is the Flower of Southern Manhood, Texan-style, a fearless all-American pirate with a keen sense of humor and a social conscience.

While watching "Sahara," I appreciated his charming performance, but I also kept asking myself which particular quality on the checklist of essential superstar attributes might explain his inability so far to crack the magic circle and decided it must be his voice. His vocal twang may be a little too high and sharp and inflected with a Woody Harrelson whine for him to convey the unassailable gravitas of a mythic action hero.

In "Sahara," the star is romantically matched with Penélope Cruz, playing Eva Rojas, a fearless, fiery-eyed doctor for the World Health Organization. The movie shrewdly avoids forcing the pair to certify their chemistry with phony midaction clinches. That each saves the other's life more than once should speak for itself. Once again, Ms. Cruz's fiery physical intensity goes only so far in compensating for her language barrier, but most of her sparse dialogue is watered-down doctor talk.

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Dirk meets Eva in Lagos, Nigeria, where he leads a crew salvaging Nigerian relics from a vessel operated by the National Underwater Marine Agency. She is there to investigate the source of a possible plague that may emanate from the Niger River, the same waterway the ironclad ship Dirk dreams of finding may have traveled two centuries earlier.

When Eva finds evidence that Mali, already torn by civil war, may be the source of the plague, she is menaced by a hooded agent dispatched by that country's reigning warlord. In the nick of time, Dirk comes to the rescue and takes her aboard the marine agency ship. The expedition's French corporate sponsor, Yves Massarde (Lambert Wilson), slowly emerges as the film's conflicted villain, a do-gooder contaminated by greed.

After Eva and her colleagues disobey orders and sneak into Mali, she is again rescued by Dirk and his wisecracking sidekick, Al Giordino (Steve Zahn). The treasure hunt is put on hold while the three intrepid adventurers uncover a toxic-waste nightmare that could escalate into a global catastrophe.

Even with order so strictly imposed, "Sahara" has more story than it can comfortably accommodate. It brashly, shrewdly pretends otherwise. As it lights out into Indiana Jones territory, it appreciates the African landscapes with an adventurer's discriminating eye. The transitions between action (an early speedboat battle crackles with wit and energy) and wisecracking banter (Mr. McConaughey's Dirk and Mr. Zahn's Al, swapping time-honored jokes, make natural sidekicks) are seamless. A robust soundtrack (by Clint Mansell) seasoned with Southern rock 'n' roll and African pop underlines the jaunty mood. It's all sleight of hand, of course, but "Sahara" lopes into the distance with the easygoing swagger of a con man who has just pulled off a $100 million scam.

"Sahara" is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some violence, disturbing scenes of illness and strong language.

'Sahara' Opens nationwide today.

Directed by Breck Eisner; written by Thomas Dean Donnelly, Joshua Oppenheimer, John C. Richards and James V. Hart, based on the novel by Clive Cussler; director of photography, Seamus McGarvey; edited by Andrew MacRitchie; music by Clint Mansell; production designer, Allan Cameron; produced by Howard Baldwin, Karen Baldwin, Mace Neufeld and Stephanie Austin; released by Paramount Pictures. Running time: 130 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.

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A version of this review appears in print on April 8, 2005, on Page E00013 of the National edition with the headline: FILM REVIEW; On a Desert Gallop, Planting Assorted Red Flags. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe